A day in the life of: a café owner

Follow Farm Girl Cafe's Rose Mann from waking up to winding down

Rose Mann is the founder of Farm Girl Café, a holistic and healthy, yet comfortingly simple approach to Australian cafe culture, which has grown from a single cafe in Notting Hill to a well known brand loved by celebrities, tourists and Londoners alike. Having moved from Australia Rose first started out doing marketing and PR for a shop in central London but when it closed she found herself jobless and so the idea for a restaurant with healthy, beautifully presented, food was born.

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The menu is based on things that Rose and her friends would order in a restaurant and the clever, bright branding means you're able to spot a Farm Girl coffee (or matcha latte) from miles away. The concept has been so successful that the entrepreneur and her boyfriend, and FG co-founder, Anthony Hood are currently working on opening a new location in Little Venice.

Find out what it's like to be a restaurant entrepreneur in the saturated London scene and follow Rose through her day...

Talk us through your morning routine..

What’s the first thing you do when you get up?

Let my dogs outside! then I have a cup of lemon and hot water, a litre of water and I try to make myself porridge if I have time

Do you have breakfast/workout/meditate in the morning?

Sadly I never have time but on the odd occasion I prefer high intensity exercise first thing like spin class or velocity at Core Collective. I also love to run around the park.

We are super casual in our office. Usually jeans, a big sweater and trainers. Sadly, my line of work doesn’t require the most glamorous uniform!

What happens when you arrive at work?

I usually get a coffee from farm girl on my way to the office, I try and walk my dogs there each morning unless I have to be at one of the cafes super early for something. Most mornings there is always some sort of surprise!

What’s your workspace like?

We recently got an office on All saints road in Notting Hill. Its the best- I love it. Its a very cute corner building with lots of windows. We have a little production kitchen in the basement, so its a very busy office! I sit at a desk most days if I’m not doing site visits or meetings.

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What does you day at work look like?

Meetings all the time. With my team in the head office, with clients, collaborating partners, managers in the restaurants, staff. We do a lot of running around at the moment as we are setting up Chelsea so I am constantly going back and forth between there and portobello.

Do you enjoy your work?

Most of the time! I do I love my job. I have learnt a huge amount, mostly that my industry is a tough one and extremely busy!

What’s your favourite thing about your job?

The people I work with. From suppliers to staff to collaborations. I’m always meeting these incredibly inspiring and interesting people. I love the organisation behind everything, I’m a little bit of a control freak, so I enjoy the daily duties.

What do you have for lunch at work?

Mostly a soup or salad, sometimes we are too busy we don’t eat until 4pm or 5pm. We usually get lunch from Farm Girl if the chefs are not too busy!

Talk us through your evening routine…

I usually leave the office around 7pm. I’m trying really hard not to do work in the evenings now. I either do yoga, go for a run and then cook dinner with Ant and watch some sort of TV series. We are pretty anti-social Monday through Thursday. At the moment its so nice because we can light the fire and snuggle up in front of TV. We used to stay up most nights until 11pm or so doing work. There is never enough time in the day! I always have a bath and make myself the Bodyism serenity hot drink.

What do you watch on TV? Any favourites?

We are loving Blue Planet at the moment. We just finished The Sinner which was so good!

How do you unwind before bed?

The Bodyism Serenity drink, hot bath, read my book.

What time do you go to bed?

I try and get to bed by 10pm at the moment, but usually asleep by 11.00/11.30pm.

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